Searching for the savings account

I started out this morning with my head held high, back straight,  shoulders back, boobs out, tummy in and bum taunt, to do my speed walk to the stationJ The bin men wished me a lovely day, that made me smile. 



Well I hope you’re still doing your toning exercises while getting the teeth whiter with the brushing.  Hopefully by now you are starting to ace the forward lunges and your legs are thanking you for it.  So no try a backward lunge, not sure these pictures/instructions should help.  Remember to bend the knee of the leg going backward to a 90 degrees angle and the front leg will drop to a 90 degree as well, start off slowly.  You’ll start to notice your legs toning up soon and don’t forget to dry brush before showering and after cream and massageJ



Do not laugh at my white legs but with your leg back like this your bum and thigh should pull really making the lunge work



Now today I said I was going to talk about savings accounts.  Firstly I know savings account and bank accounts work more in our favour in England for which we must be very grateful because in South Africa you get charged bank charges for everything.  Right the first thing you want to look for is the interest rate on savings account.  Use our good friend Google and search savings accounts.  There are some very good tools, I really like this website because you can search according to your needs be it fixed or flexi http://www.knowyourmoney.co.uk/savings-accounts/?gclid=CNvtxa7L-6oCFQR5fAodG03o3Q   If you are in England the best thing to have for a long term savings account, money you don’t touch unless you have to is a Cash ISA.  Now for those of you that don’t know this, ISA’s are tax free savings account, of which you are allowed to invest up to £5340.00 per tax year.  Once you have invested the £5340.00 into the account you can not add anymore money.  For example if you invest £2340.00 and then take out £1000.00 of that money you can still only add £3000.00 to the account.  Now this is what I’ve realised a lot of people don’t know, the next tax year you can add up to another £5340.00 to the same ISA or a different one at a new bank and you will still not be charged tax on the £5340.00 from the last tax year.  Ideally you should actually look for a new ISA every tax year because the interest rate’s change and the interest you were earning last year is not necessarily the interest you will earn this year.  Barclays for example bring out a different ISA every year and the interest rate of the old one always drops and the new one offers a better deal.  At least this has been my experience.  As we don’t suffer yet from bank charges in England I decided to use this to my advantage.  I have my current account and 2 savings accounts in the same internet portfolio.  If I use my credit card, I transfer the money immediately out of my current account in to the savings account and like I said yesterday when the cr. Card bill is due I have the money ready to pay it.  The other savings account I put money into at the beginning of the month that I plan to save as extra money but don’t put it into the ISA just in case.  Because I don’t see this money in the current account I don’t spent it and at the end of the month I transfer it to the ISA and so I start again. 

Now if you are in South Africa the thing you need to look out for on your current account and savings account is bank charges!!! We don’t like bank charges.  For my last account in South Africa, I wrote down all my debit orders, how much I used the debit card etc.  I went and saw different banks and went with the bank account that would charge me the least bank charges and when I realised that I was getting charged for my debit card I switched to using the credit card but kept a stern eye on the spending.   I actually got a credit card from Clicks were I earned points on my spend.  If you are going to have a credit card, get one that rewards you be it with store points or airmails.

So now there is no excuse to not save some pennies.